Across the Universe
by sanseiryu
Summary: Lois and Sharon, contract killers, sisters.


Lois was frazzled, it had been a near disastrous day. She placed her car keys on the counter then opened the fridge to pull out a cold bottle of Sapporo beer. Nearly everything that could go wrong did. She sat down in her recliner and took a long pull from the bottle. The cold liquid hitting the back of her throat and making its way down to the pit of her stomach gave a signal to her brain that it was now time to decompress.

She closed her eyes, and began to push out the turmoil and the recollections of the past few hours. She began to slow her breathing and her heartbeat, literally visualizing her heart beating and willing it to slow. She began to focus on a singularity. A single bright spot in her mind surrounded by blackness. The spot seemed to pulse in tune with her heartbeat. As Lois concentrated and relaxed, the pulsation slowed and slowed. Eventually her heartbeat was down to thirty-five beats per minute and still it slowed. If one were to look at Lois sitting in her chair, one would assume she was in a trance. In a way she was, as she had a unique ability to slow her bodily functions to a near hibernation state. This was something she had been born with. An ability to remove her consciousness from the now and transport herself to a different plane of existence. This was where she would go to heal herself and build up her energy that had been consumed by her ordeals in the real world.

The spot of bright light began to grow larger, and the light took on a softer glow. Colors began to take shape and still the spot grew larger until it seemed to be a window. Through the window one could see a stream, trees and soft inviting grass. Beautiful flowers that had an unusual appearance. These were Lois' flowers, all pure imagination. As was the stream and the grass, the trees and the breezes and azure skies. Here no one could intrude, forbidden to outsiders. This was her sanctuary. How long Lois would stay in this plane, often depended upon her loss of energy. Sometimes just a few minutes, other times an hour. That is not to say she was completely oblivious to the outside world. Her minds eye, the third eye, the eye in the back of her head, maintained a watch, it would alert her instantly to danger or presence of an intruder while she was healing and re-energizing.

Finally Lois felt herself disengage from her sanctuary. She could see the window begin to close up and shrink away and then she was aware of the cold bottle of beer still in her hand, condensation wetting her glanced at the clock on the wall. All of ten minutes had gone by. Yet it had felt as if she had been by the stream for hours. Occasionally she would get a pang of regret. What if she couldn't come back from her place, would it be that bad she thought to herself? But she understood that it was really never up to her how long she stayed. Rather it was her mind, body and spirit that knew how long it needed to be fulfilled. She got up from the recliner and made her way to her den. She logged onto her computer and connected to the server link. Typed in her password and was greeted by a blank screen, just a cursor flashing. She stared at the screen for a moment before she typed: Target terminated with extreme prejudice. She hit the enter key. The cursor flashed, pulsing it seemed, like a heartbeat. Then words began to appear on the screen. Contract fulfilled: Congratulations.

Lois looked at the screen, parsing the words written there. Contract fulfilled: Congratulations. She should feel a sense of accomplishment she thought, but what she had to do sometimes cut to the bone. The look in the eyes of her targets, wide, frightened, the realization that misfortune was about to drop like a fifty story building on top of their heads, sometimes brought them to their knees, begging for mercy. Others just sat back, too stunned to understand their fate and some ran around in denial, thinking that somehow, someone could save them and their miserable lives. In these instances, Lois showed no mercy. She was as cold as ice. Her eyes only seeing vermin to be eliminated. She was in the zone and spent little time accomplishing her mission. In no time at all, she was done. No noise, no indication of what had happened in the confines of her kill zone. She would exit the rooms quietly, closing the doors softly, hearing the click of the latch. Silence remained, no movement from where she had just been. It was a clean operation once again for which she would be generously compensated.

Lois was a professional. Her ability to use disguises, her mastery of several languages and accents, her own Eurasian background gave her features that she could use to her advantage. Her ability to hide in plain sight, while other times she would use her beauty to distract and lay the trap for her victims. But her eyes were her weapon. The warmth and ease that radiated out from the rich brown color, along with the smile that could dazzle or shyly hint of sensuality, could change instantly into the piercing laser-like eyes of a predator. An eagle spying a prey from a thousand feet up, a King Cobra hypnotizing the rabbit, a lioness before launching an attack on a gazelle. For a human to stare into her eyes at these moments meant the end. Lois was the most efficient machine, fully engaged in seeing things through to the finish. She had lost count of how many "jobs" she had completed. She only knew she was given the most difficult contracts. Where others had failed, Lois had a 100 percent success rate. Her name would be whispered among those in the profession. She was only known as the "Assassin".

Lois finished her beer. She shut down her computer, grabbed her pack and headed out the door. Lois needed to go away for a while. She needed to clear her mind and regain her inner self. The self that she had to hideaway when completing her contracts. Two first class ticket to Bali were in her pack. Paid for with the payment from one her last contracts. She closed the door, the lock automatically engaged. A voice recognition and retina I.D. scan was the only way someone could enter. Lois pressed the down button on the elevator, stepping in when it arrived. She pressed the down button for the garage where her 306hp turbo-charged Mini Cooper awaited. As the elevator doors closed, Lois stared back at the door to her office. The blinking red light indicating that her security measures were in place. It would be several weeks before she would see that blinking red light again. The doors closed and the elevator began its descent. Back in the hallway, the red light next to the security door blinks. Steady as a metronome. Inside the office a phone rings. A voice prompt asks for information. It immediately connects the call to her server, A voice on the other end simply states. "I have a job. I hear you're the best."

Lois lies in the sun, her face turned toward the sky inviting the rays of the sun to color her skin a luscious golden brown. Her body glistens with tanning oil, most of her body exposed except where her minimal pieces of a bikini covered the delicate skin beneath. Her eyes are closed against the brightness of the afternoon sun with no trace of the tension and slight lines that would appear after a job. Finally, she reached for her Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses and the cold glass of passion fruit iced tea on the small table next to her chair. As she sips her iced tea, she glances over at the woman in the lounge chair next to her. Long-limbed, her hair a river of glossy blackness. Her Eurasian features hinted at an exotic blend of cultures. Also wearing a minimal bikini, she seemed to be just beginning her quest for the perfect tan.

By comparing their mouths and cheekbones one could identify them as being siblings. Strikingly beautiful, the two women were the center of attention at the lagoon pool. Lois had been here for the past two weeks, she was now joined by her sister Sharon. To a spectator, the two looked like a pair of stunningly beautiful sisters on vacation. Little would they know that the two women were among the most deadly hit women to ever walk the earth. Lois was the a specialist in closeup work. Getting within the personal zone of the individual she had a contract on in order to terminate the subject was her specialty.

She used her effervescent personality, charm and sensuality. She would lure or seduce the target into her kill zone, leaving them without an out, an escape. Her weapon was a dagger. The thinnest blade that could be made by human hands. If driven into the brain, instant death. If placed into the ventricle of the heart, a sudden weakness, as the heart knowing it was mortally wounded, would begin to beat feverishly trying to maintain blood pressure, but would simply pump blood into the chest cavity, constricting the lungs from expanding as the target tried to breathe. Often times this was a worse death, as panic begins to take over. Not a damn thing you can do about it. This was a death reserved for the worst of her targets. Lois also enjoyed quietly reciting the litany of offenses into the ear of the target, so that they would die knowing that their past deeds had come back to claim blood for blood. Most of the targets would be resigned to their fate, literally allowing themselves to be held in Lois' arms before the insertion of the blade. The few that began to panic and run around trying to avoid the inevitable, would be drawn to Lois' voice, calming, soothing. And quick as a Mantis, she would bring them into her embrace. The impossibly sharp blade slipping swiftly between the ribs to wedge itself into the heart. All the while Lois' soft hand would stroke the targets cheek as the light faded away.

Sharon did her work up close as well, but not as intimately as Lois did. Her weapon of choice was a silenced .22 caliber Beretta semi-auto pistol. Lois' method of wet work being distasteful to her.

She couldn't deal with the crying, the begging, the bargaining. She preferred to make the hit with the target unaware. One second thinking about what they would have for dinner, the next, lights out. Fade to black, like the Sopranos. She admired her sisters excellent skill in getting close to her targets. It took personality, it took guile, things that Sharon found burdensome.

Sharons' skill was patience, planning the perfect location, waiting for the perfect moment. She could plan scenarios for twelve different approaches for the hit.

Sharon could deviate from one plan to another on the fly as circumstances dictated. A master of concealment, she would literally "flow" out of the walls, drop down from the ceiling or appear out of the thin air in front of the target. Then, Fut! Fut! One round in each eye. The .22 bullet exploding through the eyeball into the vitreous humor, the liquid expanding so fast and hot from the passage of the round, that in milliseconds the superheated liquid would boil out of the skull. The small bullets not pausing on its way to the brain, would spin around the inside of the cranium like marbles, scrambling the brains. Or coming along the side of the target, a shot to the temple, where the skull bone was the thinnest, followed by the coup de grace at the base of the skull as the she stood over the body. Sharon was known as The Widow Maker.

However, the two women were on vacation. They made a pact long ago that the wet work would not be discussed when on retreat. This was a time to catch up and talk of other things. Sharon would keep Lois in tears from laughing so much, while Lois would be a mind reader, automatically sensing her big sisters moods and thoughts and countering the waves of depression that could come over Sharon and leave her a wreck. Although Sharon would feign indifference to the deaths she had brought about, there were the times when the faces would appear to her in her dreams. With her infinite charm, understanding and gentle caring, Lois would ease Sharons' mind back from the abyss and embrace life in it's beauty.

As the two lounged and relaxed under the Balinese sky, one person stood beneath a tree , his intense gaze upon the two women by the pool. He had been observing the sisters for the last half hour. By now he was certain of their identity. The descriptions were a match. One of the sisters got up from her lounge chair and said something to the other, shared a laugh, then walked off toward the bar inside the resort. He turned to find a quiet spot in order to call in his observations. As he walked to a shaded and isolated corner of the garden, he pulled out his Blackberry and began to type out a message to his contact. The Assassin and Widow Maker located. Guard down, I am in close vicinity. Will await confirmation of fee transfer before initiating liquidation.

As he finished tapping out the remainder of the message on the phones keyboard, he became aware of someone standing next to him. So intent on the message, he hadn't noticed the person walking up to him. All he saw in the last moment of his life were the wisps of clouds up in the blue sky above, as a hand soft against his forehead, but strength like steel cable underneath, snapped his head back. His back bowed under tension, he heard words whispered into his ears. Words that were terrifying to hear, words that announced his death. Then a sharp pain that struck his chest. Immediately his legs began to buckle, he wanted to shout out, but the words continued. Then the soft hand began to caress his face, his cheek. His chest felt like a swelling balloon, his heart seemed to hammer, yet he felt so weak. He felt himself being laid into a lounge chair, a rolled towel being placed under his head. As the light began to dim, a woman's face filled his vision. Such a beautiful face he thought, gentle. He thought that perhaps he should thank her for making his death rather painless. But his mouth wouldn't move. Nothing moved. And finally the soft fingers gently closed the eyes of the dead man.

The woman picked up the Blackberry that had dropped to the ground. The message had not been sent. She deleted the message, then pulled the memory card and battery, crushed the phone with an ashtray and disposed of the them in a garbage bin next to the kitchens.

She went back to the bar and picked up two iced teas and headed back to the pool side. As she walked she sang a song to herself...

...Pools of sorrow waves of joy

are drifting thorough my open mind

Possessing and caressing me

Jai guru deva om

Nothing's gonna change my world...


End file.
